‘Smith had a reason to kill her, Simon,’ Kombothekra said now. ‘She’d been sexually abusing his stepson for nearly a year. I know what you’re going to say: Smith’s own abuse of Aidan started long before Mary Trelease came on the scene . . .’

‘Making him something of a hypocrite if he subsequently killed her for what he himself had been doing for years,’ Proust interjected.

‘He wouldn’t see it that way,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Aidan was his, simple as that. No one else had a right to touch him. Mary Trelease was also his, and she’d made him angry. I can see exactly why he might strangle her.’

‘Except he didn’t,’ said Simon.

Kombothekra carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Trelease would wait for Smith to pass out, which he did reliably every night, and she’d start on Aidan. In Smith’s eyes, what he did was justice. He’s proud of it. “I’d kill anyone who laid a finger on one of my kids”—that’s what he told me, and it’s what he’s been saying to anyone who’ll listen to him since he’s been banged up.’

‘The men who come out with that shit are the ones who don’t give their kids a second glance from one year to the next,’ said Charlie. ‘They want to talk about killing, that’s all—next best thing to doing it.’

‘If Smith didn’t and doesn’t care about Aidan Seed, why is he willing to do time for a crime Seed committed?’ asked Proust.

‘He cared,’ said Simon. ‘Lots of abusers love their kids.’

‘Shame,’ said Charlie. ‘Pure and simple. Seed’s brother and sister both say Smith went to pieces after their mum died. He was a classic insecure bully. Once his punch-bag was gone, he couldn’t handle being on his own—the drinking got worse, and he moved Seed into the master bedroom, into his bed. Mary Trelease was strangled in that bed in the middle of the night. How could Smith explain to the police that his stepson was in bed with him and his girlfriend? A man like him’d rather go down for a murder he didn’t do.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘Aidan was twelve when Pauline Seed died. Can you imagine what it must have been like for a boy of that age—forced, under a constant threat of violence, to share a bed with your stepfather?’

‘The brother and sister can’t say for sure, but both reckon Smith started abusing Seed as soon as the mother died,’ said Simon. ‘Neither did anything to stop it, though, because they didn’t know for sure if there was anything to stop, and they both lived in fear of Smith. Luckily for them, they were older, and only had a few years to sit out before they could leave home.’